Page:Once a Week Volume 5.djvu/21

11 Afar thou shinest in the happy south, But shunnest this sad place. O, Guinevere! Mine own dear wife! where art thou? Tristram, too, The truest knight of all my Table Round; And thou, most gentle Lady of the Lake, Who gavest me my sword, and bid me forth To consecrate the right and cleave the wrong. Where, too, art thou, when most thy aid I need?"

Now high in heaven a lark sang very clear. "Hush! what! that sound? Do'st hear it? 'Tis the lark Which called me forth to this adventure sad, And now, perchance, doth come to lead me back, Sent by the gentle Lady of the Lake."

And now the birds stopped half-way in their song. The weird sad voices died amid the woods, And sudden silence dropped around the place. A little breeze up-sprang, and tossed her hair In savage splendour round about her face; Her lips were cold and bloodless; with both hands She thrust him from her, while with stony eyes She gazed at him; then, hissing through closed teeth, "Fool!" turned away and fled among the woods.

Then high in heaven sang the happy lark, And dropped and dropped, until it rested safe Within the spreading branches of an oak. And, as with eager haste he raised his hands To catch the bird, he heard a rustling sound, And, turning round, with wondering eyes he saw Sir Tristram and the Lady of the Lake.

She took his hand, and led him forth to where The silly sea toyed with the tangled weed; And in this quiet creek a vessel lay. Embarking here with Tristram, from afar Up-sprang fair winds; so that in one day's space He found his wistful knights at Camelot. And all these wondered where the king had been, And marvelled how much older he had grown; But none knew, save those twain who led him forth. Sir Tristram and the Lady of the Lake.

ECIL'S astonishment, nay consternation, may be imagined, when, on one of his almost daily visits to the solicitor's chambers, he was taken aside by the senior of the firm, and informed, with all the alacrity of a presumed herald of good tidings, that he himself, and no other, was actual heir at law to the last proprietor of the Hollies; and what was more, recognized as such, in the draft of a will, which had been made in his favour, and afterwards destroyed.

"Not a word of this, Mr., as you value my peace of mind!" was Cecil's eager exclamation; "least of all to your client. If, indeed, the law gives me undisputed possession of the Hollies, she need never know to whom she is indebted for reinstatement in its possession, or on what terms the law has reinstated her. Thank God for that! She never reads law cases in the newspapers, poor soul! she has had enough of them elsewhere; and were she even to see a dicision in favour of some of the many Cunliffes who have swarmed like bees about this little bit of property, she need never know to which of them it was awarded, so as her own humble home has been insured to her. Just apprize her formally that such has been the result, and save her, above all things, the humiliation of feeling obliged to any one. You may even give her to understand, if necessary, that Sir Jasper, who really stood to the old man in much the same relation as myself, had been proved heir at law, to tranquilize her mind as to her undoubted right to stay where she is."

But though Mabel was fairly settled in unquestioning security in her beloved retreat, not even the glossy exuberance of evergreen foliage, or bright profusion of coral berries, from which its name was derived—nay, not even the joyous, though at times impulsive, spirits of her darling boy, could ward off painful reminiscences of happier days on the same cherished spot, or prevent the winter solitude of her home from pressing on the lonely widow.

Her undivided efforts, earnest and unswerving as they were, failed often to amuse, and oftener to control, the high-spirited boy, whom his father's gentle firmness had ruled in infancy with a silken cord, whom she loved "too wisely" and truly to spoil, yet lacked the precise skill to discipline or energy to join and direct in his boyish pastimes. This sense of helplessness and of the expediency of more efficient training found a frequent echo in the remarks—characteristically expressed—of her two self-constituted advisers, though not in fact invested with the slightest control, Sir Walter Meredith and Colonel Vandaleur.

The former, whose visits had long been few and far between, and who was fast subsiding into a miser and a misanthrope, would observe, not very delicately, that for a boy who must win his way in the world, the sooner he got some glimpses into that said world the better for his success in it. The Colonel, again, who took, since the lost inheritance, a yet more fatherly charge of Mabel and her boy, would